It is important to monitor and continuously control the weights of cigarettes made by a cigarette making machine. Commonly that is done by means of a nucleonic device which scans the finished cigarettes and produces an output signal which is used to control a trimming device removing a variable quantity of the tobacco forming the cigarette filler stream before it is wrapped in a paper web to form a continuous cigarette rod.
Nucleonic devices can emit potentially harmful X-rays and there is accordingly a need for investigating other devices. Other means for continuously scanning the cigarette rod or the unwrapped filler stream have been proposed. However, some such devices may be insufficient on their own to control the weights of finished cigarettes, and we believe there is a need for a device for intermittently weighing groups of cigarettes produced by a cigarette making machine in order to use the actual cigarette weight as a means of checking or calibrating the continuous rod or filler stream scanner. The present invention is concerned with such a weighing device.